Category Archives: shameless me stuff

I’m thrilled to say that one of my editing projects is getting close to publication! Hurrah! Coming very soon from Fox Spirit Books may I present – Fearless Genre Warriors: A Fox Spirit Sampler.

With illustrations by Kieran Walsh and cover art by Vincent Holland-Keen, Fearless Genre Warriors: A Fox Spirit Sampler brings you a selection of twenty six short stories, three poems, and two pieces of non-fiction pulled from the full range of Fox Spirit Books anthologies and collections!

You’ll also find the tales told in the graveyard hours, twilight terrors and pre-dawn dread. There’s tales of death and resurrection, human monsters and monsters of legend, tricksy creatures both fae and other, from desert and hillside and moor, to the depths of space and the deepest sea. Stories of transformation and transference, of hope and revolution and survival and moving on. Stories where worlds are changed, new homes found, and lives altered for the better.

It will be available soon in digital format only, and how much will this epic volume of short fiction goodness cost you? Nothing! Nada! Zip! Zilch! Totally Zero! Free all the way! Is that not the bargain of the year or what!

With my Ann J. Clark hat on, I’m pleased to announce that the revised and updated edition of Let’s Try Dowsing is now live on that there Amazon!

Le blurb: Whether you are simply curious about the art of dowsing or are looking to make dowsing a part of your deeper spiritual journey, this book will give you the basic foundation skills to get started.

You will find tips on how to centre yourself and ask the best questions, how to make and dowse with pendulums, rods and forked twigs, how to make and use dowsing answer boards to give greater context to your enquiries, and when you’re ready to try things out, there’s a selection of dowsing exercises you can use to hone your skills.

You’ll also find information on the fascinating history of dowsing and how it is used in modern times along with some resources to take your studies further.

Let’s Try Dowsing is available in kindle format for £1.99 from Amazon or in paperback format from Tarot4You at various events in Berkshire, Hampshire and surrounding areas!

I am thrilled to announce that both Let’s Try Tarot and Let’s Try Cartomancy are live!

Let’s Try Tarot is a short taster guide for those who are curious about the nuts and bolts of tarot reading but don’t want to delve deep into the spiritual aspects. The taster guide will give you basic history, interpretation keywords, card combinations and themes, some simple layouts and tips for how to read.

Let’s try Tarot is available in ebook and paperback formats from Amazon, and in paperback format live on the Tarot4You stall at various events around Berkshire.

Let’s Try Cartomancy is a taster guide for the art of divination with playing cards. Whether you want a fun fortune-telling method to amaze your friends or family, or want to learn cartomancy for more serious purposes, the taster guide will give you the foundation skills to get started. You’ll find basic history, interpretation keywords, card combinations and themes, some simple layouts and tips for how to read with the standard 52 card deck; and if you like a challenge there’s also information and layouts for using a 32 card deck.

Let’s try Cartomancy is available in ebook format from Amazon, with paperback formats out 27th July from Amazon and live on the Tarot4You stall at various events around Berkshire.

Not only! But also! The splendiferous Mark West has compiled another Mixtape blog, this time on short Stephen King fiction. I did a short thing on ‘Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption’ and you can read it, and the rest of the picks, over on the Mixtape here!

Publication News!

And I am thrilled to announce I’ll be having a story published in the upcoming Alchemy Press Book of Horrors. My story ‘Down Along the Backroads’ is a bit of a weird post-apoc multi-world thing where new visitors to town stir up things best left unstirred. There’s a lovely bunch of horror folks joining me in the table of contents (see the full list here!) so look out for that around September time.

Booooooooooks!

I may have written a couple of non-fiction books. I blame the mother ship entirely.

Thus – coming later in the year will be a couple of short taster guides for card divination! Let’s Try Tarot, co-written with Patricia Barber, will give the quick and easy way to try out tarot reading. Its companion volume, Let’s Try Cartomancy, covers quick and easy playing card divination. More news on those to follow!

Proving that you don’t need to be at a convention to be inspired by it, you’ll find me talking about the wonderful world of SFF online fiction over at the Fox Spirit Books blog. Yes, there are lists. Because how could there not. And links aplenty! Hop on over!

This morning I’m delighted to be part of Mark West’s latest short fic mixtape – it being Women in Horror month, the theme is, quite naturally, Women in Horror. My personal pick is for one of the many excellent stories in Tananarive Due‘s Ghost Summer: Stories collection, which is a book I enthusiastically recommend you all go out and buy, just because! But the particular story I’ve picked is also available online at m’beloved Lightspeed so you can pop over to read the Mixtape then link through to read the story! (Is that a deal or what?)

Elsewhere across the interwebs, the gloriousness that is the Girl’s Guide to the Apocalypse has resurrected from its shallow grave to fight the good fight once more, so you’ll find me and many others popping up there with info, meta and all manner of oddness. Thus far we’ve covered survival rations and stocking your pantry, the art of protest signs, humour as an essential survival tool, how to date an egomaniacal dictator and my own contribution – a vaguely Resident Evil inspired ramble on Beware the Monsters.

Up today on the very lovely Mark West’s site, is the American Horror Mixtape – in which a selection of fine and funky folks pontificate on their favourite horror shorts from US-ian and Canadian authors. My pick is a classic Stephen King thing – ‘Mrs Todd’s Shortcut’ from Skeleton Crew. Not that it was easy to pick just the one King short, mind, but ‘Mrs Todd’s Shortcut’ is a particular favourite.

Not only, but also! A couple of months back our man West hosted The Brit Horror Mixtape – in which a bunch of us babbled about our favourite horror shorts from Brit authors. Another tough pick, that, but Sarah Pinborough’s ‘Do You See?’ won out as my contribution.

Pop over to see who picked what else, and stand by for future mixtapes!